Like so many other people, I’ve been using the same router for years. The original Linksys WRT54G has been connected to my cable modem for years now and before a few weeks ago it wasn’t something I thought much about. It did its job without problems since day one, and aside from occasionally changing some settings or resetting it when I couldn’t get through to the Internet, it just sat in there blinking. This was the case until a friend needed a new router. After doing a bit of research I realized that it was time for me to get a new one and, because her networking demands were limited, pass my WRT54G on.

The router I am using now is the Linksys (by Cisco) WRT610N, a simultaneous Dual-N band router. It’s wireless like my WRT54G, but it blows older models away in most respects. For people who don’t pay attention to their networking equipment this may seem surprising, but don’t forget that my version 1.0 WRT54G was released in December 2002 and has seen a number of revisions since then. Just like any other field of consumer electronics, networking has seen serious improvements in the last six years.

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The Linksys WRT610N is relatively new but you might be thinking, it’s just another router, right? It still connects with a laptop wirelessly and has four ethernet ports on the back, but that doesn’t mean nothing has changed, in fact you’d be surprised how much things are different.

The most obvious change is in the design. The WRT610N has done away with the pop-up antennae and blocky shape usually associated with Linksys’ routers. The familiar blue paint job and stackable design are both gone as well, replaced with a glossy blue-black and some sort of spoiler on the back. The green LEDs are now blue and the router is shorter, but both deeper and wider than before.

The changes to the exterior are minor compared to what’s going on internally. For the purposes of this article we’ll stick to the high-level changes and why the WRT610N beats out that old model.

The first change is of course the use of Draft 802.11n radio. This means faster throughput than a/b/g so long as you have a compatible device in your laptop. It also has two bands of Wireless N, 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, that work “separately yet simultaneously”. This means you can use the optimized 5GHz connection for gaming/media where you don’t want interruptions and reserve 2.4GHz for surfing the net, where that same interruption would go unnoticed. It also means that you have more flexibility with connectivity–you can have one N user on 5GHz and one on 2.4 or you can put all your G devices on 2.4 and leave 5 for the important stuff. Again, you’ll need the right receiver in order take take advantage of wireless N and 5Ghz, but almost any WiFi-capable device can connect to the router.

Other perks include the four gigabit ethernet ports on the back, MIMO wireless technology, and a USB port on the router. USB allows the user to plug in a hard drive or USB flash drive in order to make it available over the network. Another feature is Entertainment Optimized Network (EON) which is said to analyze traffic to in order prioritize tasks like gaming, video playback, and music to ensure optimum performance. And don’t forget UPnP supported, WEP/WPA/WPA2 security, and up to 128-bit encryption.

Another benefit of a new router is the included software. This was something that was never worthwhile to use in the past, but the Linksys EasyLink Advisor is actually helpful from time to time. It makes networking a bit simpler, and rather than using the extensive amount of networking knowledge that we’ve all been forced to accumulate over the years it will walk you through any problems you may encounter. It also draws a nice map of your network so you can check the status of all your notebooks, Media Extenders, consoles, NAS devices, desktops and so on. You can change security settings and repair connections through it as well. You can even tag and track devices as intruders.

As far as speed goes, wireless N should certainly have throughput benefits compared to older models. This is not something that will make a major difference day to day, as 802.11g is generally fast enough, but your theoretical bandwith is increase to about 75MB/s as opposed to under 10MB/s for standard Wireless-G (according to Wikipedia). In the real world this means improved transfer times, say from your NAS to your PC) but there are always other bottlenecks to deal with so while things will improve, it won’t rock your world.

Thanks to the software, setup is easier then ever and once your are up and running performance and connectivity were both improved. The router is seen by your 802.11n-capable devices as two different signals, but if you name them appropriately you will easily be able to pick out which you want to use (2.4 or 5Ghz). I was able to pull down transfers at over the 80Mbps mark, which is more than fast enough for my purposes, so long as the range was reasonable. Over longer ranges the router was still strong, but obviously speed degraded a bit.

{ad}The killer feature for the router may just be the USB port. This allows you to make any external hard drive a NAS. You may not get all the functionaly of a standard NAS, but the drive will be accessible from the network, which is the most important part. This feature will help justify the $150 (or so) price of the WRT610N.

Ultimately, the move to Wireless-N was a very successful one. A router like the WRT610N is not a small investment, but amortized over 5+ years (based on the life of my WRT54G) we are not talking about a lot of money. And, of course, you can spend less, you’ll just miss out on some of the extras, most likely the sleek design and dual-band radio. Based on the performance of the router over the past few weeks I only wish I had made the move earlier.

Reader Comments

hodar

Made a similar upgrade using a Belkin N+ router. Amazing performance improvement over the older Linksys WGT54G (Rev 5) router I had. I mean, the difference is not limited simply to the Wireless 802.11n performance, the throughput on this router is literally 3x faster than the old Linksys.

Put things in perspective. Download a file and I would see download speeds of ~250Kbps. Now I see 750Kbps average with peaks over 960Kbps with the same file, from the same places. I stream Netflix video without interruption where I would always see at least 1 pause and have the movie resume at a lower framerate. Now my stream is locked in solid at the best download rate Netflix has.

I went to Amazon and got some Trendnet wireless ‘N’ PCI cards for my desktops, now I transfer files between my desktops at speeds well over 10x of what my ‘G’ cards used to do. The specs indicate a 6x improvement, I’m seeing between 10-15x personally.

http://www.itwerks.ca/ Alif

I wonder if there are any manufacturers that create routers with replacable radios (as draft versions change). I’ve seen access points made by Cisco that do that but I mean more at the SOHO type product lines.
Hmm..

Edward Couble

I am a new user of wireless and bought a linksys wrt54g2 on Feb 13 as it is the only one that does not have a lot of setup problems and all kinds of bad ratings at the independent sites. The articles above rave about the 610 but i would not buy it as it has al lot of 5/5 and a lot of 1/5 ratings. I could not find a good N router so I decided to be like IBM and go with the tried and true. I wish there were more personal setup experiences rather the features in the above comments. I think the above were written by people with aconflict of interests as they are too positive to be true.. But that is my thought and you can’t do anything about it.

http://arghyle.com Sal Cangeloso

btw- anyone using this router, make sure you upgrade to the latest firmware.

I can honestly say the box of the WRT610N router is utterly misleading. The claims that the router has ‘robust range and speed’ and provides ‘more complete coverage throughout your home’ are basically untrue in anything that looks like a real home. The Rangeplus antenna technology does not give you ‘expanded wireless coverage’ as promised. Basically, if you want to use this router to stream to any device in any room OTHER than the one the router is in – forget it.I live in a small flat. I have my internet connection and media server in my office and I want to stream AV to my media PC attached to my TV ie the exact use the router is marketed for. As you can see, in the 5GHz band this is impossible (cannot receive). I am better off using my ancient WRT54G even for the 2.4GHz band.Using the format: band (GHz)/ throughput (Mbps)/ signal (dpm) / noise (dpm) Same room (4m – distance router to PC. No internal walls)WRT610N Version 12.4 / 130 / -52 / -915.0 / 162-270 / -55 / -88WRT54G Version 42.4 / 18-36 / -51 / -89Next room (8m – distance router to PC. 1 internal wall)WRT610N Version 12.4 / 78-104/ -64 / -915.0 / 13.5 (av) -54 (peak) / -77 / -98WRT54G Version 42.4 / 24-48 / -65 / -89Next room (12m – distance router to PC. 2 internal walls)WRT610N Version 12.4 / 13 (aV) 19.4 (peak) / -83 / -915.0 / ZERO / NA / NAWRT54G Version 42.4 / 11-36 (18av) / -78 / -89 I had already upgraded the firmware. I called Linksys support. It was very hard to get them to understand the problem. They tried lots of things which were not very successful. After reading how poor the power of this router is (why I not find these reviews by users before I bought it I am not sure) I tried the moving and benchmarking exercise above. I called back Linksys. They are exchanging the router but I am extremely doubtful the next one will be any different.In short. If you want to use a router in a different room room to the target device DO NOT BUY THIS ROUTER.

http://arghyle.com Sal Cangeloso

@matt

I’ve had a good experience (better with the new firmware) but I have seen some mixed reviews. Overall most people seem to be happy with it, but I have seen more complaints about the range then I would have otherwise expected.

Apologies for the dense text above – didn’t realise I needed to markup the post.
<p>
I have the most up to date firmware for the router and drivers for my network card. The router is great in terms of features, it just isn’t capable of putting the signal through 2 internal walls over 12m, which is after all the point of a router marketed to cover your whole house for your new digital world…
<p>
It may be this is a defective model, I may try a return. Linksys have agreed to take it back but I suspect only to shut me up. getting a refuund in Asia is typically quitehard.

http://arghyle.com Sal Cangeloso

Just a quick FYI: a new firmware is out.

Ver.1.00.03.15 was released on 07/28/2009.

Last Released Date: 07 / 28 / 09
Firmware version: v1.00.03 B15

Warning: Remove the USB storage device from the Router before the firmware upgrade; this safeguards the USB storage data from corruption.

Just a heads up for anyone planning to use this router to add a hard drive to there network. The WRT610N cannot handle a drive larger than 750 Gigs and must be formatted in Fat32. Nowhere in linksys documentation, such as their advertizing, in the manual or on any support pages is this mentioned.

http://arghyle.com Sal Cangeloso

Thanks for the info Dale–that’s crazy. I haven’t seen any documentation mentioning this either. This is the case with all firmware revisions?

anonymous

This router was buggy at release but with the latest firmware (May 2009) all issues are resolved. Works awesome. Certified for Windows Vista Logo and has got IPv6 (IPv6 firewall too if you have the latest firmware) Just no control over it.

Ron

I just bought this router on eBay, its the Ver 2 and has the latest firmware. The router is three rooms away from my office, signal is good, really can’t complain. It replaces my Belkin N wireless router only for one reason. I want to dedicate the 5 GHZ to my computer let the rest of the family stay on the 2.4. My dual band wireless USB adaptor has not arrived yet so can’t tell you how successful that will be yet.

One thing…the WRT610n gets pretty hot compared to the Belkin. So I have it on a small corner table with a little thing underneath it to give it lots of air space for the heat to dissipate easily.

Milo

*sigh* … I got a 4TB Western Digital HDD to hook up to the WRT610N … should have read the posting by Dale first before I put in so much $$$ for a 4TB HDD. Am not able to connect the 4TB to the router and need to hook up to one of the home PCs. What a bummer :-(

Dale

Milo
Have you found a way to add your 4TB drive to your network? I had to buy a adapter to connect it to a ethernet port on the back of the router.
Dale

mark

HI.
I bought this router on Saturday and spent nearly 5 hours on trying to getr it to work with my pre-existing adsl modem router.
It has the possibility to be used as an accesspoint (what I bought it for) but it is nowhere mentioned in the manual let alone in the setup program. *sigh*.
About the range: I bought it because my old speedtouch wireless gbg ,odem router experienced some problems serving wds, 2 playstations and a mac wireless at the same time. I reconned new(er) technology would be able to fix this.
Forget it.
The 5 GHz band is completely attenuated after two dry single layer brick and mortar walls and the 2.4 GHz part does not come near the troughput of my speedtouch…
Anyopne in for a trade?